Syria civil war - Page 19

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday he hoped to make progress in talks in Geneva over the next two days toward renewing a cessation of hostilities agreement throughout Syria and resuming peace talks to end the fighting.

The Washington Times reports: Iran has begun to ask its teenage boys to volunteer to fight in Syria in a sign the hard-line Islamic regime’s military is suffering rising casualties in the five-year war and needs a morale boost, an opposition group says.

The Times of Israel reports: Senior Israeli official on Wednesday said the IDF would strike an Islamic State-affiliated group operating near its border with Syria if there were any indication the jihadist group was testing or using chemical weapons.

The United States borrowed an Israeli military tactic known as “roof knocking” to try to warn civilians before it dropped a bomb targeting Islamic State fighters in Iraq this month, but a woman was killed in the attack, a U.S. military official said on Tuesday.

Air strikes and shelling pounded Aleppo for a third straight day on Sunday, killing two young siblings and at least 24 others in Syria’s largest city and former commercial capital. The northern city has been bitterly contested between insurgents and

Russian forces in Syria have fired at least twice on Israeli military aircraft, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek improved operational coordination with Moscow, Israel’s top-selling newspaper said on Friday.

The United States said on Thursday it was concerned about reports that Russia is moving more military equipment into Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad, with a truce in tatters and peace talks in meltdown.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to travel to Russia Thursday morning for a quick round of a meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin during which the leaders are expected to discuss Syrian fighting and weapons sales to Iran.

The New York Times reports:  BEIRUT, Lebanon — For 38 straight days, the streets of the northwestern Syrian town of Maarat al-Noaman had been the scene of protests against the government and the Islamic extremists of the Nusra Front. On

WASHINGTON — President Obama had “an intense conversation” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday in which he expressed concern on the eve of his visit to the Middle East and Europe about the fragile Syrian peace talks and increased violence in Ukraine, White House officials said.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday vowed to defend Muslim countries against terrorism and Israel while insisting that its neighbors should not feel threatened.

Government air strikes hit rebel-held areas of Aleppo on Saturday as rockets fired by insurgents pounded neighborhoods under state control, part of escalating violence in northern Syria that has undermined a truce agreement. Fatalities were reported on both sides of

The first foreign experts who visited the museum in Palmyra after it was taken over from Islamic State militants said they spent a week collecting fragments of priceless broken sculptures from the museum grounds and preparing them for transportation to

The Russian air force and Syrian military are preparing a joint operation to take Aleppo from rebels, the Syrian prime minister was quoted saying on Sunday, and an opposition official said a ceasefire was on the verge of collapse. With

CNN reports: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering sending 250 additional U.S. special forces to Syria to advise rebel groups as part of a broader Pentagon recommendation on how to increase the pace of operations against ISIS, a U.S. defense

BEIRUT (AFP) –  The Islamic State group is under growing pressure on several fronts in Syria as rival forces battle to wrest territory from the jihadists, who are excluded from a six-week-old ceasefire. The scramble by the regime, anti-government rebels and

TEL AVIV – Significant Russian and Syrian gains against the Islamic State in Syria may have global implications as IS finds itself on the run and in need of a public show of strength, warned Breitbart Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative

A Lebanese military court sentenced former information minister Michel Samaha (pictured) to 13 years in prison with hard labor on Friday for attempting to carry out “terrorist acts,” a judicial source told AFP. Samaha was convicted of transporting explosives to

The Times of Israel reports:  The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah has reportedly been constructing a fortified base inside Syria that it may be using to store Iranian ballistic missiles with the range to hit Israel. Satellite images of an area

Three people were wounded on Thursday when two Katyusha-type rockets fired from an area in Syria controlled by Islamic State (IS) jhadists slammed into the centre of a Turkish town close to the Syrian border, a report said. The rockets

Israel’s neighbors are buying arms on a scale that threatens its regional military superiority, the deputy Israeli air force chief said on Sunday, in remarks that appeared aimed at helping secure more defense aid from a reluctant Washington. U.S. military

Iran has sent commandos to Syria as advisers, a military official said on Monday, suggesting it is using its army as well as paramilitary forces to help President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the country’s civil war. Tehran is Assad’s main

TEL AVIV – Iran’s involvement in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq is meant not only to ensure the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and weaken anti-Shi’ite militants in the region, but to ensure that Iranian weapons smuggling to Syria and Lebanon

Israel’s neighbors are buying arms on a scale that threatens its regional military superiority, the deputy Israeli air force chief said on Sunday, in remarks that appeared aimed at helping secure more defense aid from a reluctant Washington. U.S. military

Islamic State militants retreating from Palmyra laid thousands of mines that they planned to set off simultaneously as the army moved in, a Syrian officer told Reuters in the ancient city after its recapture from the jihadist fighters. The officer

Syria is willing to take part in an international coalition against terrorism but only if the United States will work with Damascus in a way it has not done so far, the Syrian envoy to Geneva peace talks said on

The secretary of the Iranian National Security Council has congratulated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on regaining the city of Palmyra, Tasnim news agency reported on Monday. “The determination of the Syrian nation, government and army to eliminate terrorist and takfiri

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan will get a cheap $100 million loan to help create 100,000 jobs for Syrian refugees and its own citizens, the World Bank president said Sunday. The long-term loan, almost interest free, is part of an

The fate of President Bashar al-Assad will play no part in talks to end the Syrian war, the head of the government’s delegation said, leading the U.N. peace envoy to warn that lack of progress on the issue could threaten

Dozens of people were killed in a series of air strikes on the city of Raqqa in northern Syria on Saturday, a monitoring group and activists said, as Damascus and Moscow waged attacks on areas controlled by Islamic State. A

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the world on Monday,  March 14 that his forces will be withdrawing from the front line of Syria’s bloody civil war. Stating that they had accomplished most of their objectives there, Mr Putin added that some

TEL AVIV – Russia’s decision to withdraw some of its forces from Syria was made thanks to reassurances provided by Saudi Arabia, the main sponsor of militias fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime, a senior Arab diplomat told Breitbart Jerusalem.

The Washington Post reports:  JERUSALEM — Israel viewed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he was removing the bulk of his troops from Syria with a mix of surprise and concern. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin met with Putin in Moscow

Ynetnews reports: A Palestinian-American member of the Islamic State group gave himself up to an Iraqi Kurdish military unit in the country’s north, an Iraqi Kurdish general said Monday. The circumstances of the surrender were not fully disclosed, but it marked

CNN reports: The political future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is non-negotiable, his chief envoy said Saturday, undercutting a chief demand of rebels who are scheduled to attend negotiations next week aimed at defusing a brutal five-year war. Assad’s status is

The Jerusalem Post reports: MOSCOW – Russia is convinced the United Nations peace mediator on Syria Staffan de Mistura should take a decision on including ethnic Kurds in Syria peace talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday. Holding